The Next Best Thing
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Sometimes when I’m reading science fiction I come across technological ideas that can, in the “right” hands, have sizey applications. As we know, the Square-Cube Law pretty much eliminates any realistic possibility of true giants or tiny people, at least those who might interact with “normal” people. I suppose one could imagine aliens from a different evolutionary environment or gravitational field that could be considered giant or tiny intelligent life, but to me such a size encounter wouldn’t be much different than interacting with blue whales or field mice; there’s awe and wonder, but it’s just not the same as meeting another person who is impossibly larger or smaller than you. For that you need either magic or some hand-waving away of known physical laws.
Even in “hard” science-fiction, however, one can find a number of ways to interface with the human mind in order to experience a virtual or artificial environment, sometimes just for communication but also, tantalizingly, for recreation. Of course, I am hyper-alert for any such scenario that includes characters who intentionally seek out simulations featuring otherwise-impossible size differential.
One example of a science-fiction universe that has multiple avenues for such size experiences is Iain M. Banks’s Culture series. Humans living in The Culture are in a post-scarcity utopia, including dramatic life-extension and digital backups of one’s consciousness that can be restored to a new body if one is killed. Artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and robotics are sufficiently far advanced as to seem like magic to us here trapped on a melting planet ruled by plutocrats.
It would be trivial for The Culture to manufacture androids of a desired size that a human could remotely pilot, just like in the Avatar movies (or in the series The Peripheral). They would have all the appearances and sensations of a normal human, just extremely large or small. They could talk, hear, feel, and have every other human experience as they encountered normal people. Presumably, the paternalistic Culture wouldn’t permit giant androids to menace human habitats, but there could easily be preserves set aside for such recreation.
More sophisticated would be engineered organic bodies into which a human consciousness could be transferred. Such bodies could be super-resilient or just as vulnerable as a normal human. With the “backup” capability, a human mind in a, say, tiny engineered body could experience the world from a reduced perspective and if they were killed (as occasionally happens to imaginary tinies), their consciousness could be retrieved, including (if so desired) the fatal experience. In the Culture series, there is a particularly cruel species that has engineered food animals that resemble miniature versions of themselves for the sheer sport of hunting them.
Of course, the simplest option is virtual reality, which The Culture has perfected to a high art. One could interact with other people, each at the size of their choosing, and AI-generated NPCs could provide the desired social environment for whatever size scenario one is in the mood for that day. Virtual scenario authors and artists would create endless narrative options, genres, and worlds to play in, and if you still couldn’t find something to your taste, give your preferences to an AI who can probably quickly generate something that scratches your itch.
I long ago gave up on the hope of ever directly experiencing true size-differential, but I still cling to the idea that technology might give us the next best thing. What would you do with these possibilities?
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I can’t remember what book, sadly, but there was a scifi book I read years ago where they had something similar to that kind of tech; there was a scientist guy who used available biomass to bulk himself up into this iron mini giant with a big cock, and he made a little city of people.
It never went into much detail about it, other than it was there (the main character looked down on him because of it, and it was clear this was happening because he was afraid/trying to compensate), and eventually the little city was absorbed to use their biomass.
I… want to say it was Star Dragon, by Mike Brotherton.
Power is choice.
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@i-am-insane That reminds me of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Hollow Pursuits”, wherein Barclay compensates for his insecurities by (among other things) making the hologram version of Riker less than five feet tall.
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@Olo Bring up Star Trek in a size fetish form, and be ready to be reminded of that time in DS9 when they shrank a shuttle down to the size of a handgun, and the crew to the size of a black bean!
But something that this thread reminded me of was how in the Game of Thrones tv show, they did their best to make the giants look like they would function in our world. Like, they gave the big fella elephant feet, and a pyramid-style body build, getting more narrow the farther up the body you got. They made a really big deal about the giant design looking like it would function as a living creature in a non-fantasy setting.
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I feel like what I would do with the possibilities is so boring
I would love to experience what it’s like to be small in a safe setting by exploring my surroundings, and especially just interact with a giant friend. Probably nothing sexual even, just be picked up, carried around, cuddled. A far cry from standard sci fi fare!If you’d like to support me and my work, please feel free to leave me a tip and I will be so grateful! https://ko-fi.com/littlestlily
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@Mrgoblinging7 Depressingly, in “One Little Ship” the writers decided that normal-sized oxygen molecules would be too big for the miniature crewmembers’ lungs to absorb, so they were restricted to the environment inside the shuttle.
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@littlest-lily Then you best pick your virtual reality roleplaying partners with great care. Or you can just order the vanilla Giant Gentleman NPC with Extra Affection.
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@Olo hmm. A 3d printed , 3 inch tall me that only dies superficially, whose consciousness I could check in and out of, sounds perfect. It could be cheap enough to be affordable to get a few copies.
Crowded street lottery is my first choice. Who knows what I’ll find out there! And if I get crushed by a loafer, wham, bam, I can just go back and do it all again!
Another fun Saturday could be going to a less crowded place like a cafe during off hours and startling the hell out of anyone when I walk onto the table by them. Always wanted to know how much fun roaches have when they do that.
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@tiny-ivy I hope you encounter someone with the appropriate imagination and appetite.
