Editorial: Gloomy sci-fi writers need to get optimistic again

We need Star Trek to boldly go and find a happy ending at the final frontier.

LOTS OF science fiction has painted a bleak future.

From George Orwell's 1984 through to The Terminator, there's nearly always been a Klingon on the starboard bow, or another jump ship setting off that incessant alarm.

But ever since sci-fi writers abandoned TV and movie scripts for epic adventures in video game land, prophecies of doom and gloom have become the norm.

At this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) not one new video game paints a future that's not apocalyptic or torn apart by conflict. Game developers it seems are incapable of imagining a world where things turn out okay.

Which is not to say I worry that we might all meet our demise at the hands of fire-breathing dragons or invading aliens.

But in other ways science fiction has been a reasonable barometer of things.

Jules Verne landed us on the moon way back in 1865. Mark Twain logged on to the internet in 1904. Captain Kirk's Enterprise crew had cellphones in the 60s. Science fiction used to spark our imagination.

Hands up if you wished you were Jodie Foster in Contact or Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters, and got to meet an alien race?

Or wished you had a holodeck as your entertainment centre or lived aboard a starship exploring the galaxy?

Now all we have is guns.

Folk will always want to zap zombies and defeat the evil empire - after all, it's a lot of fun.

But so was befriending new civilisations with Star Trek's Jean-Luc Picard, examining thorny issues and holding up a mirror to our own society.

If life imitates art, let's hope there's an invincible mode.