Panelists included moderator Tobias Buckell, Karen Lord, Steven Erickson, Robert Jackson Bennett, and Leah Bobet.
– Are we doomed to forever colonize?
– dispensing with colonization runs against the grain of the species
– society continues to evolve, so our colonizations will evolve too
– space colonization is essentially a do-or-die situation. Only necessary in the direst circumstances.
– stories don’t necessarily have to create new things – they can eliminate old things
– colonization can be a result of flight; c.f. large waves of refugees.
– colonization in service of a common myth (“manifest destiny”)
– colonization can happen at a variety of resolutions
– colonization at the memetic level – someone else tells your story in their voice.
[FIRST NATIONS SPECULATIVE FICTION]
– China Mieville’s Embassytown
– propaganda becomes myth
[A FIRE UPON THE DEEP]
– positive colonization? Coexistence? Star Trek?
[IAN BANKS CULTURE NOVELS]
– Look at how colonization shifts the balance of power
– We don’t colonize places that we don’t want.