matsu

Trading History

Here’s the first of my ideas for a science fiction story, one that has been in my head for a couple of years.

In the past few years, the discovery rate of exoplanets (planets in other solar systems beyond our own) has increased a lot, using indirect methods, such as measuring the wobble of the solar system’s star caused by the gravitational interaction with such a planet, or by measuring the decrease in brightness if the planet’s orbit puts it between its sun and us.  With the understanding that science and technology will keep the ever increasing rates of growth, it can be postulated that it will be possible, within the next 50 years, to image directly such planets, down to a resolution that would permit very detailed observations – down to the level we achieve with satellites imaging our own earth today, or better [note: what would the possible resolution limits be?  Considering multiple viewpoints from the sun's orbit].

Considering that light moves at a maximum speed, when we’re seeing a planet, say, 2000 light years from us, we’re actually recording what happened twenty centuries ago.

Now imagine, that the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) bears fruit, and that the civilizations we find have accomplished the same radio-optical astronomical achievements as us, probably even in the past – they might have a recording of our own planet, from their viewpoint, of all, most, or some of our history, depending on when they achieved this capability, on their interest of recording, studying, and storing such views, and their longevity as a civilization.

Now the possibilities for the story become two-fold: a) there is no faster than light (FTL) transmission of information, therefore we would have to wait a long time to communicate and exchange data with our far away neighbours; or b), we could have some kind of instant communication medium that would permit us to trade our histories (or any other info) with each other without delay.  Both possibilities open different story structures and rhythms.

There are lots of different possible stories based on these basic premises.  Who controls the image acquisition hardware and software?  Who “owns” the images?  What will guarantee the veracity of arriving (and departing) information?  What impact will our “true” history have on us and our institutions?  How will the “alien” histories we watch impact us?

I’m not really sure (as far as I know) if anyone has had this idea and developed this or a similar concept before.  If you think it’s an original concept, feel free to use it, commercially or not, within a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.