Space Opera Fans discussion

Found this article on the HuffPo: 7 Sci-Fi Writers Predict The Future Of The Olympics
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/o...

Personally, I am looking forward to #3.

1. Climate change will cause the Winter Olympic Games to change drastically.
Madeline Ashby, author of Company Town

2. A new, more environmentally sustainable alternative to the Olympics will rise up.
Malka Ann Older, author of Infomocracy

3. Cheesy human interest stories will be replaced by a more immersive, athlete-controlled media experience.
S.B. Divya, author of Runtime

4. The Games will become a nostalgic ode to a time when humans were less scientifically perfect.
Max Gladstone, author of Four Roads Cross

5. And they will do so for the same reason we enjoy going to the movies or looking at art today.
Patrick Hemstreet, author of The God Wave

6. Or, it could go the other way, and corporations will sponsor athletes based on their DNA sequences.
Stacey Berg, author of Dissension

7. And each Olympic event will eventually handle issues of gender differently.
Ada Palmer, Too Like the Lightning

What do you think? Any other suggestions for the future?

With the world we have today I think we're past the point of no return for #2. 6 is an interesting idea!

I think the creation of OlympicWorld is an inevitability - a permanent place with suitable climatic controls for all sports, ice or heat...

Personally, I think we're all headed for a Hunger Games type situation 3:-)

May the odds ever be in your favor!

Anyone ever read Tom Sullivan's short story called "The Mickey Mouse Olympics?" It came out in Omni in the late 70's. It was all about genetically engineered athletes. Hits a little close to home, actually, what with all the recent doping scandals.

Cool article. Number 6 was pretty terrifying. Given the various scandals surrounding the 2016 Olympics, I can actually see it happening to some extent. But Number 3 seems most likely to happen in the short term. I can definitely imagine Olympic sprinters donning Go-Pros and fans tuning in to see the race from a first-person perspective. That would be amazing!

I'm afraid I'm more cynical about this. From "35 Hours", a short story of mine in which Jodie and Paul who hate each other are trapped together in an escape capsule:

Jodie nodded. A hellish childhood might drive a man to cut himself off from the world, seeking only the company of small creatures that never tried to hurt him.
"I'd set up a little aquarium in a classroom. We had a biology teacher who let me do it. Then one morning I found the school's star strikeball player pouring bleach in the tank."
"What?"
"Archie Tarrant. I can still see the leer on his face as he watched my fish dying. The school did nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing. They needed him to captain the team. They didn't need me. The headmaster said so."
"Hold on, not that Archie Tarrant? Banned for life for using performance-enhancing gene splicing?"
"The same. I got unbelievably drunk when I heard about his ban."
"Good for you."

the Olympics won't last another 50 years. the costs of hosting it are just getting to be too much.

Yeah, that's for sure. But it would be a shame. I think they need to work at reforming it. Maybe if one city didn't have to do the whole thing. I don't claim to be an expert. But I do enjoy it.

Several sites have posted haunting images of how badly most of the former Olympic sites have decayed, including the ones in the USA. I would say it is NOT worth it due to special interests hijacking the process and deliberately driving up the cost so they can jip the taxpayers.

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/photos/a...