Hacker News Reader

> If an entire Sci-fi continuity were limited to just Sol and Alpha Centauri, this by itself would constitute an inexhaustible number of potential settings.

"Saturn's Children" by Charles Stross is a good one (unfortunately he had to do away with humans to keep the space opera physically realistic).

View on HN

Mostly humans with radiation repair nanomachines and shielding could do just fine, I think. (Saying more would spoil Saturn's Children.) Humans commanding autonomous drones should figure more into Sci-fi. "Away teams" of drones in real life space fleets should be more prominent. Instead of a transporter shifting bodies, we could have the shifting of points of view through VR teleoperation. (Which is really what a transporter was for in the original Star Trek series: Changing locations with minimal production expense.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com